An interesting story is developing that may just expose yet another Liberal scandal. After weeks of waffling on the issue of income trusts, Finance Minister Ralph Goodale announced last Wednesday evening that he had decided to decrease the tax on dividends paid by corporations. Fine. As far as I'm concerned it's a good move. What is odd about this story however was a curiously large increase in the volume of these trusts traded Wednesday prior to Goodale's announcement.

As to be expected, there was a massive spike in trading Thursday morning as people reacted to the announcement. But this does not explain the large increase recorded Wednesday before the Finance Minister made his announcement at 6 p.m. Was information illegally leaked and acted upon? Curious indeed.

It's only been a short while since the corruption-laden Liberal government bit the dust but already the Liberal apologists are at it. I'm flipping back and forth between CPAC, Newsworld and Newsnet and it's becoming clear the road Martin and his followers intend to take,

First off, if Paul Martin and his trained seals pursue the notion that AdScam involved only a few Liberal officials, then I suspect their permanent demise will be quick and painless. Come on you guys. Have you read the Gomery Report? All the Conservatives have to do is quote from that very report and the Liberal claims will vapourize as quickly as their moral authority to govern.

Secondly, I wouldn't brag about that surplus too much. Instead of gloating about the surplus perhaps we should examine just how it was achieved. Geez Louise I'm taking home less money now then I was a few years ago! I guess it's easy to consistently post a budgetary surplus when you tax the shit out of the peasants! Until the Martinites can claim the surplus came about as a result of a strong economy and sound fiscal management don't talk to me about budgetary surpluses.

And then there is the nonsense about people not wanting a Christmas election campaign. I suppose there is no pleasing the apathetic crowd but don't tell me that anyone who has an even slight interest in politics doesn't want a holiday campaign. As I asked a couple of weeks ago, how will an election interfere in the festivities? The actual vote won't even occur until either mid or late January. But even if it took place on Christmas Day itself so what? You only vote once and it's over. Nay, it's the Liberals who don't want the election at this point in time. Reeling from the first installment of the Gomery Report, the Liberals were hoping to stall an election call at least until spring time at the earliest. In the meantime, the game plan would have been to smother us with a feel good budget in the hopes that throwing around some dough would help Canadians forget AdScam. Not likely. Don't believe me? One only has to look at the massive spending increases the Liberals have announced recently. Nice try Mr. Prime Minister but it won't work. There will be no spring time election. There will be no fat-laden feel good budget to smother us with. The day of reckoning is fast approaching.

Canada's Liberal minority government has fallen. For the first time in Canadian history the federal government has been defeated purely on the grounds of a non-confidence vote. The motion, passed by a margin of 171-133, said that the government had lost the confidence of the House.

In accordance with Parliamentary rules Prime Minister Paul Martin must now ask the Governor-General to dissolve the House. After GG Jean announces the dissolution of Parliament, she will set an election date which is speculated to be either Jan 16 or Jan 23.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop is turning out to be more suspense-filled than yesterday's barn-burner of a Grey Cup game. I refer to this evening's vote of non-confidence of course. It has been a long time in coming. It appears that Canada's opposition parties will finally join forces to help the Conservatives bring down Paul Martin's Liberal government. I must admit that I am a bit apprehensive about the vote which is set to occur in about 30 minutes. What if Handsome Jack and the NDP once again vote with the Grits? It's not like they haven't done so before. What if the Bloc pulls a last minute stunt? I'll breathe a lot easier once the vote is over. But if everything goes to plan, this nation's federal government will fall tonight and Martin will have no choice but to call a general election for early January.

I go into hospital for a rather large surgical procedure today. It is however day surgery so I hope to be back home by the evening and blogging away as usual. If that proves too optimistic, however, I may not be making any contributions to this blog for a day or so.

Parents on welfare with large families should not have to look for work under controversial changes to Australia's welfare system, a government-led committee has found. The Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee has had just two weeks to consider the contentious welfare-to-work proposals, which aim to push more single parents and disabled people into the workforce. But committee chair, Liberal senator Gary Humphries, on Monday said parents in large families - with four or more children - should not have to look for work. "The committee feels that the pressure on those families are considerable and the grant of automatic exemption is warranted," Senator Humphries told parliament.

How disgusting can you get? Trying to suppress the natural honesty of toddlers! A good reason to keep your kids away from government-regulated pre-schools and kindergartens

Racism among Irish toddlers will be tackled at a conference for childcare providers in Dublin later this month. International research shows that children can form prejudices against other races even as babies and pre-schoolers. Workers in creches and childcare facilities will be shown how games and activities can prevent such discrimination forming. The anti-racism initiative is being organised by childcare committees in south Dublin and Fingal who hope it will provide a blueprint for child carers across the country.

Julia Hackett, a co-ordinator on the south Dublin committee, says it is important for children to acknowledge the differences between people at an early age and learn to accept them. "Children from a very early age acknowledge the difference between people. We want to bring together the childcare professionals that are working on the ground to develop practical anti-bias approaches that are active, indeed activist, so that we can challenge prejudice, stereotyping and bias," she said. "Childcare professionals want activities for the children to encourage them to feel comfortable with the differences and similarities between themselves and others. "By listening to the professionals we will be able to find the best way to integrate these activities and plans into the existing curriculum rather than just having them as an add-on." Hackett says the group hopes to be able to provide guidelines to childcare facilities about the inclusion of different nationalities - including providing halal meat on menus.

I have never been able to explain to my own satisfaction why Leftists despise patriotism. And I think that the short answer is that they don't. I think it is only (or principally) a worm in the brain of the modern-day American Left. In America's "Progressive" era (late 19th and early 20th century) the Left were not only patriotic but outright nationalistic. The founder of America's "Progressive" party (Teddy Roosevelt) definitely put his trust in battleships and was instrumental in the invasions of first Cuba and then the Philippines. And the excuses mustered for both invasions were as threadbare as such excuses usually are. And under Woodrow Wilson (still a great hero to the Left for his sponsorship of the League of Nations) unpatriotic and antiwar utterances landed thousands of Americans in jail. A large slab of the modern American Left would now be in jail if Woodrow Wilson were still in charge.

Internationalism or Weltbuergertum (world-citizenship) as an ideal seems usually to be traced to Karl Marx and that aspect of Marx certainly inspires the small band of Trotskyists who still agitate away worldwide. Yet Marx's co-author, Friedrich Engels, was an unabashed and strident German nationalist. Go through the archives of my MarxWords blog if you doubt it. And Marx himself took sides in various wars of his day. So I think we must regard past Communist sponsorship of internationalism as no more than a ploy.

And the Left in countries outside the USA has generally been patriotic and continues to be so. No-one questions the patriotism of Australian Labor Party politicians, for instance, because there is no need to. They in general sincerely put Australia's interests first, according to their lights. American Democrat politicians, on the other hand, are super-sensitive to questioning of their patriotism because they know it to be well-founded and yet at the same time also know it to be electoral poison.

At this point I think I should digress a little to make a distinction between patriotism and nationalism. The concept of patriotism (love of one's country) is fairly unproblematic but nationalism is a much vaguer and more fluid concept. At its core, I think, is a claim of national superiority. But what follows from that varies. We can see nationalism in the form of invasion and domination of other countries (as in the "Progressive" assaults on Cuba and the Philippines) or we can see it in a non-aggressive form as in modern day France. The French continue to think that their national superiority is unquestionable and do their best to promote French Gloire, distinctiveness and independence but, after the tremendous loss of life that they endured under Napoleon, military adventurism has not been on their agenda to any significant extent at all.

I personally have no problem with either patriotism or non-aggressive nationalism. It is now a mainstream view among psychologists, despite their generally Leftist orientation, that patriotism is a normal and natural part of the human psyche and I myself have argued for that view at great length in the academic literature. Perhaps the most interesting finding that emanates from the psychological literature on the subject is that patriotism is in general totally unrelated to racial attitudes. It was for many years the dominant view among psychologists that patriotism and racial prejudice went together to form a syndrome of "ethnocentism" but careful research has repeatedly shown the two to be essentially unrelated. You can be proud of your country without at the same time looking down on particular racial or ethnic groups.

So why do modern-day American Leftists despise patriotism? I think it is clearly because they in fact despise America -- so anyone who loves America is anathema to them. And why do they despise America? Because they are haters. They hate and despise success and satisfaction in others. They disguise such motivations as a desire for "equality" but tearing down any contented society that exists is what gets their rocks off. And the USA has now become the world's most powerful, successful, important and generally pre-eminent society that there is. It is also a society that gives lots of ordinary people the experience of a full and contented life. And Leftists hate all that. They hate any pre-eminence but their own and they want to scratch the eyes out of all that contentment -- which they demonize as "complacency". So to Leftists worldwide, the USA is the epitome of all they hate and so it is on the USA that their hatred is focused -- whether they themselves are inhabitants of the USA or not.

In the "Progressive" era, of course, the world power was Britain and "British imperialism" was the great Leftist hate-object among the Left of that time, both in Britain and elsewhere.

Brownian Motion: Vibratory, haphazard motion observed in microscope preparations. Tiny particles suspended in fluid, such as dust in cigarette smoke or Brown's pollen grains, when and seen through microscope, are in a constant state of random motion.

Bully for you Bob. I really hope you get some action on this issue by the time this Bill gets approved. Or at least a letter acknowledging your efforts from the UN.

“Extensive evidence before the Senate inquiry showed how these terror laws breach Australia’s legal obligations under international law”, Senator Brown said. “We will be asking the United Nations to review the laws in light of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights.”

Bob 'Snitch' Brown is hoping the omnipotent UN Human Rights Committee will endorse the removal of the government and install one that will implement UN governance. Bob's also hoping to see some more 'fairies' at the bottom of his garden.

Australian Democrats, the second most useless political representatives in an elected institution recently had to make some clarifying statements in regards to recent anti-terror raids in Sydney and Melbourne. Senator Lynn Allison, this week's leader (unless Tash wants yet another crack at the title) was responsible for this piece of unbridled idiocy.

"I think it's convenient for the government to constantly keep people fearful about the terrorist threat to this country," said Democrats leader Lynn Allison.

What can read into Lynn's remarks? It seems clear that she is suspicious of the timing of the actions against religious nutbags intent on B.S.U. The raids were just one day after various commentators and political hacks accused the government of creating a police state. Senator Allison, clear up this mess. Why should the Australian public believe a word you say?

"I do not accuse the Prime Minister of orchestrating the raids nor was I speculating that he did. I clearly said that I did not have any information to suggest that this was the case. I made it clear that while some people may speculate that this timing was a little too convenient, I was not."

Some people? Lying Lynn, you win this months 'Ultimate Bullshitter' prize. You win a continued term in Parliament to be ridiculed and ignored by the majority of Australians. Another one who should quit while they are behind.

Let me start by saying, I don't feel that Van Tuong should hang for the crime that he has been found guilty off in Singapore. I feel it was good that Australia protested respectfully against his punishment to the Singaporean government and I believe John Howard and his government has done all they could to save the life of this fellow. Singaporean law is exactly that, Singaporean law, we need to respect their laws as we would expect them to respect our laws.

With no more than a few days to go before the fellow is executed, I would think, leave the family and friends of this man to themselves, let them find some peace or way to deal with it, not give them false hope and not turn their sadness into a farce and opportunity to score some cheap publicity.

But it appears the behaviour of some politicians and leaders in Australia is much like that of insolent children in the local supermarket, when mommy and daddy refuse to buy them the requested unaffordable toy, they pull their faces, sulk, throw a tantrum, shriek incoherently, moving their body parts in random directions, hoping this will make the parents budge. However this behaviour draws attention from bystanders, leading to embarrassment for the parents and is ultimately pointless. The toy cannot be bought.

Prime Minister John Howard will attend the PM's XI cricket match on Friday, the day of Australian Nguyen Tuong Van's scheduled execution, and he believes Australians will understand.

These guys should be horse whipped in the city centre for printing such nonsense. Even if the Prime Minister joins these buffoons on the floor of the supermarket and refuses to attend a cricket match, Nguyen will not be spared. The fate of this man is not in the hands of John Howard, but why let some inconvenient facts get in the way of a good ol Howard smear.

"I have a job that involves many responsibilities. It wasn't my decision that the execution take place on Friday," Mr Howard told ABC radio.

Not so, squeals the opposition, who seem hell bent on remaining on the shop floor with the rest of the children. Score some political points. The world must stop, look at me, look at me!!I mean what do they want Australia to do, send in the SAS, send a warship over there, ask the PM to punch someone in Singapore.

However, Labor senator George Campbell says that the cricket match should be called off. Senator Campbell said it was insensitive for Prime Minister John Howard to attend the match on Friday. Senator Campbell said he had heard Mr Howard's justification for attending the game, describing it as feeble.

"I think it's an outrage that the match should go ahead and if he has any support for the abolition of hanging, then he wouldn't go to the match on Friday," Senator Campbell told reporters in Canberra.

I wonder if any of this outrage and protest and tantrum throwing is displayed when a victim of drugs, overdoses and dies, when a child is born drug addicted, when a parent loses a child, or a child a parent, or when an addict commits a crime to fund his drug habit. Incase these rascals are not aware, Nguyen wasn't caught for trafficking jelly babies or M&M's, it was heroin strapped to his body.

Not to be outdone, the neighbourhood brats have joined the fray.

Australian Democrats senator Natasha Stott Despoja agreed, saying she felt sickened by the prospect that Mr Howard would attend the game on the same day that an Australian would be executed. "I call on the prime minister to call off this game," Senator Stott Despoja said.

Yes call George Bush while your at it, stop the political processes of the world, all must stop, we want to be heard, our protest must not go unheard.

But wait, wait for the loud mouth, desperately in need of Super Nanny discipline, Bob Brown, this delinquent will protest against anything and everything, now this fool wants the Prime Minister of Australia to join him and his band of merry juveniles, waving placards and wasting taxpayers money in front of the Singaporean Embassy.

With the Senate scheduled to sit this Friday, Australian Greens senator Bob Brown said he would prefer to be protesting outside the Singaporean Embassy.

"If I was him I wouldn't go, I would be making Friday a day of reflection on the barbarity of mandatory sentencing for the death penalty and the insouciance of the Singaporean prime minister and government about this whole issue."

A day of reflection he says, well some have even opened their mouths and words have been uttered, that a minute of silence be observed, and the brain was engaged thereafter.

I think they are right, we do need a day of reflection and a moment of silence, these spoilt brats that have made Australia look like a circus of monkeys need to be sent to naughty corners or steps or chairs to sit, stand or preferably squat in silence and reflect on their childish antics.

If it's going to costs bosses millions just because of normal sexual responses and differences between employees, who would want to hire the whiners?

Your boss pats you on the bottom and a male colleague remarks on your breasts. An after-work drink is followed by a series of lewd text messages and, at a male-dominated meeting, jokes are made about explicit email images. For hundreds of Australian women each year, this kind of unwanted sexual attention is just part of the daily grind. Thousands more encounter a far subtler form of sexual discrimination - structural inequity in workplaces where men in dark suits still dominate.

In the past two years, in Britain and the United States, banking leaders and international law firms have been forced to pay millions of dollars to women workers treated differently because of their gender. In Sydney, a $10 million landmark sexual discrimination case due before the Federal Court in February for the first time alleges that a culture of systematic discrimination exists at the nation's largest accounting firm. Senior PricewaterhouseCoopers partner Christina Rich claims she was sexually harassed by several partners at the firm, and that her career and those of other women were stymied by a "culture of discrimination, bullying and harassment". The 41-year-old also says partners discouraged her from speaking out and victimised her when she made a formal complaint. Rich says she was labelled "scatty", "emotional" and "high maintenance" by a senior partner.

It may well be years before the case concludes, but it has prompted predictions that a flurry of lawsuits will ensue from senior women fed up with hitting their heads on the glass ceiling. University of Sydney academic Associate Professor Catharine Lumby believes that by demanding financial compensation for discrimination, women are finally talking the sharemarket's language.

"Money is what will make people listen," Lumby says. "It's not as simple as a whole lot of men walking around saying 'we hate women'. It's that the worlds of work and private lives are still absolutely separate and for many women that means that issues that matter to them, such as child care, are deemed irrelevant." That sexual discrimination still thrives is because women are seen as "sexual beings", Lumby says.

Warren County Community College adjunct English professor, John Daly resigned last night before the school's board of trustees began an emergency meeting to discuss the professor's fate. On November 13, Daly sent an email to student Rebecca Beach vowing "to expose [her] right-wing, anti-people politics until groups like [Rebecca's] won't dare show their face on a college campus." In addition, Daly said that "Real freedom will come when soldiers in Iraq turn their guns on their superiors."

School president William Austin said that he will incorporate tolerance seminars for professors during the next faculty in-service day to shield students from this type of harassment, as requested by Young America's Foundation. Rebecca Beach has called for Austin to select Young America's Foundation President Ron Robinson as the one to teach leftists how to be tolerant toward conservatives. Robinson has dedicated his career to defending free speech on college campuses. "More colleges and universities need to follow the lead of WCCC and integrate tolerance training for insensitive leftists," says Young America's Foundation Spokesman Jason Mattera. "John Daly is yet another Ward Churchill. Academia is filled with intolerant leftists who openly show hostility toward conservatism."

Daly's email to Rebecca came after she sent a note to faculty announcing the appearance of decorated war hero Lt. Col. Scott Rutter to discuss America's accomplishments in Iraq.

Young America's Foundation will continue to monitor and expose similar instances of leftist intolerance through our online service, "Activist 411 - Activism Made Easy." This resource helps students, like Rebecca Beach, by providing them with advice on how to advance conservative ideas effectively and reveal intolerant professors, administrators, and other left-wing elements who attempt to intimidate and silence young conservative activists.

As the principal outreach organization of the Conservative Movement for 35 years, Young America's Foundation introduces thousands of young people to conservative ideas through national conferences, campus lectures and activism programs, internships, and seminars at the Reagan Ranch. Young America's Foundation preserves the Reagan Ranch as a premier presidential property and living tribute to Ronald Reagan's life and ideas.

"A multimillion-dollar campaign to boost Germans' low self-confidence has backfired after it emerged that its slogan was coined by the Nazis. The $34 million "Du Bist Deutschland -- You Are Germany" -- campaign was devised to inspire Germans to stop moaning and do something good for their country. Beethoven, Einstein and the sports stars Franz Beckenbauer and Michael Schumacher have been cited in advertisements encouraging Germans to take more pride in their homeland.

But a historian from Ludwigshafen has provoked an uproar with his discovery that the same "Du Bist Deutschland" cry was used at Nazi rallies in the 1930s. Stefan Morz uncovered photographs of a 1935 Nazi convention in which soldiers display a banner reading, in Gothic script, "Denn Du Bist Deutschland (Because You Are Germany)." The slogan was topped with the head of Adolf Hitler. Leading Nazis such as Hermann Goring and Joseph Goebbels attended the event."

The Nazi connection is not as obscure as the article excerpted above pretends. One of Hitler's favourite slogans was: "Um uns ist Deutschland. In uns marschiert Deutschland. Und hinter uns kommt Deutschland!". Like much of Hitler's rhetoric it cannot be translated in a way that gives much idea of the impact of the original but it literally means: "Around us is Germany, In us Germany marches and behind us comes Germany". So the basic idea behind the modern slogan and Nazi thinking is pretty similar: Identifying the individual with the nation and making Germany a sort of mystical icon. All very Hegelian!

I spotted this fascinating thread on Andrew Bolt’s forum (and have been following it quite closely over the last two weeks), a popular conservative columnist for Melbourne’s Herald Sun.It started like this (with a comment from a guy called Mark):

You are right in claiming that communism and fascism have much in common. Sibling rivalry is an excellent description. I find it more accurate to think of political ideologies located somewhere on a circle rather than a straight line, with moderates at the top and totalitarianism (fascism and communism) at the bottom. Fascism and communism arrive at the almost the same place but from different directions.

Then this guy (called Richard) wrote:

Mark said: "I find it more accurate to think of political ideologies located somewhere on a circle rather than a straight line, with moderates at the top and totalitarianism (fascism and communism) at the bottom. Fascism and communism arrive at the almost the same place but from different directions." Thanks, Mark - this is precisely the currently accepted model. As an Economics Professor of mine once said, find an exception to a model (even one), and your model fails; start again. So, try and fit Anarchy in the model you have just described. . .

Then a fella' called Mike responded to that:

Andrew - Richard M seeks to demolish Mark's concept of political ideologies ranging in a circular, or clocklike fashion, whereby the otherwise 'opposites' of fascism and communism are joined by their common means of implementation - totalitarianism. I agree with Mark, and have often seen the ideological spectrum set out in just the manner he describes, rather than in a linear form ranging from the right to left. Richard M, in seeking to disprove Mark's concept, introduces anarchy into the equation, and challenges Mark to place anarchy into his circular spectrum.This is where Richard M is in error. Mark was writing of a circular arrangement of ideologies - and anarchism is NOT an ideology, but merely the state which exists in the ABSENCE of an ideology, and, consequently has no place amongst a range of ideologies.

Then this appeared (from someone called Werner - I’m still scratching my head):

Andrew, it was disappointing to see you dismiss John Kriesfeld's comments about global theories of political ideologies so flippantly. There is much that you could take from this theory and incorporate into your own writings, given they draw from, and interact with, socio-political thought and policy in Victoria and Australia so heavily. With ideologies fanning between poles of the global (and spherical) political spectrum and your writings spanning the arcs between the traditional "right" and "left" there is an obvious convergence that you must better harness if you are to take your ideas and theories and make them truly palatable to the whole community. However, with convergence occurring in a curved environment it is much harder to plot than if it occurred on a plane.One last word of advice, Andrew. As John was trying to warn you (if only you would see...) beware the Moon of Anarchy, with its power to warp the political fabric of the global ideological environment. You must carefully consider the stage of the Anarchy tide with each utterance and success in this area would certainly allow wider acceptance of your transcendental views.

Andrew replies: Werner, let me respond to those parts of your post I understand. First, it is impossible to make any political or ideological idea, let alone my own, "palatable to the whole community", and you'd have to be megalomaniacal to even attempt it. Second, there is no arc between Left and Right - the extremes of both tend to huddle together at the collectivist end of a line that has anarchy at the other. I'm somewhere in the middle, moderate as always, trying to balance the claims of individuality and freedom with the ballast of the collective.

Then the Richard guy responded:

Mike (17/11), I wasn't trying to 'demolish' Mark's concept, nor was I being facetious when I thanked him. I was grateful he'd raised it; it's a conversation I rather enjoy. You said: 'I agree with Mark, and have often seen the ideological spectrum set out in just the manner he describes.' I reply: indeed you have, and it's wrong. A spectrum, by definition, is a presentation of a range of component parts. You said: 'Mark was writing of a circular arrangement of ideologies'. I reply: sure, and it does not represent the full range of those parts. You said: '. . .anarchism is NOT an ideology.' My reply: try telling that to an Anarchist. An ideology is a principle, Mike, a thought, belief or creed. One who actually believes in having little government (for example) as the theme central to their 'polity' holds these by definition. This is an ideology.I think you miss my point, though. Look at it this way: just how well is the ideological spectrum (as such) served by the `circular? model? For example, where does someone who believes in even greater laissez faire/minarchism (for example) than the currently accepted moderate 'midpoint' suggests (that vague'mix' of moderate 'left/right' that the 'circular' model has us currently inhabiting; the opposite 'extreme' to the meeting of Communism/Nazism) actually fit? They don't. The 'circular' model fails.

Then the Mike guy shoots back:

To Richard M - I do get your point, but disagree with it still. You said that the circular diagram of political philosophies fails because Anarchism cannot be placed in it. OK, where would you place Anarchism in a linear scale ranging from right to left, then? To the left of the Left? Or to the right of the Right? In the middle somewhere? Doesn't fit, does it? Not on a linear scale nor a circular one. You were off target, even in your own terms, in introducing Anarchy as an essential component in a scale of political philosophies, when anarchy is not a political philosophy, but the state which results from the practical absence of any political philosophy.What the extremes of Left and Right share resides in their common mode of implementation - Totalitarianism. Totalitarianism, like Anarchy, is not a political philosophy, but refers to government by oppression. I, pardon the pun, am not going to talk this round in circles any more. The error of your comment is obvious enough. Have the last word if you wish. Mike Hodgson.Andrew replies: I think if you think of the scale going from total control of the individual to not the slightest, even by the claims of family, tradition or morality, you end up with a scale that goes from totalitarianism of both the Left and Right, to perfect anarchy. The trick is to find exactly where in the middle is best.

Then the last word from the Richard character that Mike is finding so annoying:

'Into the valley of death. . .' Dear Mike, Andrew has pretty much nailed it, but I will answer your question (at grave risk of boring Andrew senseless, I fear). 'Where would I place Anarchism in a linear scale ranging from right to left, then?' First, we need to accept that a part of the 'circular' paradigm is quite correct: Nazism and Communism, and their collectivist totalitarianism, are actually expressions of the same thing. In that much, the 'model' is indeed right (forgive the pun). Then, however, we need to entertain the difficult notion that Nazism was never an ultimate expression of the 'right' (so-called), as is the accepted premise. I mentioned laissez faire and minarchism quite deliberately, as examples of political philosophies that entertain what the further extremes of the 'right' are actually all about, and represent an antithesis to what the Nazis (and Communists) were all about.If we must use the left/right analogy, then let's: Nazism was and is, albeit an extreme, expression of the 'left' (along with the various other '`leftist' political philosophies that, in brief, pursue the collective and its control). The ultimate expression of the 'right' is its opposite (call that what you will, though Anarchism does me fine). Voila - working model. . .

Here's the really fun bit, though. Andrew Bolt then came out with a column on Friday (25/11): Fascism puts Left foot forward, where he said (among other good stuff) this:

Fascism is in fact an ideology of the Left, as Hitler (the Nazi Socialist) and Mussolini (the former editor of Italy's official Socialist newspaper Avanti) showed.

Apart from the fun that will be the usual crew of seething Leftist nutjobs who inhabit Bolt’s forum going stark raving bananas over this one, I’m expecting a really interesting forum response. Keep an eye on it.

Plans for a walkway high in the forest of Westland National Park have stalled over a requirement to provide access for wheelchair users. South Island tribe Ngai Tahu is behind the $2 million treetop venture, a more than 300m-long looped walk, 14m high and against a backdrop of the Southern Alps' Franz Josef village.

Ngai Tahu Tourism acting general manager Rick Tau said providing electric or mechanical lifts to get disabled people up and over sets of steps built into the walkway would add more than $100,000 to the cost of the project. "It could put the kibosh it," he said.

More than $50,000 had already been spent on design and planning. Electric lifts would require a power supply, and self-operated mechanical lifts could be a problem if people were severely disabled, Mr Tau said. The tribe had asked the Department of Building and Housing for an exemption under the Building Act, but was turned down.

It's not the first time Ngai Tahu's tourism ventures had come up against disability laws, Mr Tau said. "Some of it is idiotic. We have lodges that take two days' walking to get to, yet we have to provide wheelchair access to toilets."

Social scientists and others rely (or should rely) on extensively sampled data to support generalizations that they make. Valid generalizations can hardly arise from anything but sampling of a wide range of relevant data. To generalize about a given population, you at least need to sample it in some way.

Nonetheless, statistical generalizations do NOT seem to be very persuasive to most people. Not unreasonably, people tend to be much more influenced by observations and events that they know personally or that people they know have told them about. So generalizations will not usually gain much traction without illustrative examples. Anecdotes are at least as persuasive as well-founded statistical generalizations.

So what I want to do below is give two small anecdotes from my life that do in my view illustrate at the personal level two generalizations that I believe are well supported by other historical and psychometric data: That many Muslim populations are emotionally immature and that the Chinese are innately a highly civilized people. There are exceptions to every rule of course but what I want to do is give examples that illustrate the rule.

I often eat out for breakfast. And in highly multicultural Australia the providers of breakfasts are ethnically highly varied. And the "ethnics" often do not understand English well. So getting a breakfast from them can sometimes have its communication difficulties. On one such occasion, I was having difficulty getting what I had ordered from a Muslim (Iranian, I think) business. After communication had repeately failed, I began to get a bit irate. When I did so, however, the Muslim owner got irate with me and accused me of insulting him. At that point I simply turned on my heel without another word and walked out -- and I never went there again. He went broke a few months later.

On a second more recent occasion, a similar situation transpired in a business run by a Chinese man. Did his "honour" get besmirched by my annoyance? Not a bit of it. He was apologetic and conciliatory. I did not walk out of HIS eatery. I enjoyed my breakfast when I eventually got it and I will eat there again. I shook his hand as I left by way of apology for my bad temper. And I am betting that he won't go broke. Give me the Chinese any day. I have known Chinese people since childhood and have had umpteen opportunities to observe their behaviour here in Australia -- and the example I have just given is absolutely typical of them in my experience: Truly smart, patient and civilized people.

Australian politicians and pundits (See e.g. here and here and here) are jumping up and down about the planned execution in Singapore of an Australian-Vietrnamese drug runner Van Tuong Nguyen, but former pop star and alleged pedophile Gary Glitter, undoubtedly better known with the general public, now under threat of death in Vietnam, generates no such reaction. See e.g. here and here

"Heavy wintry showers are expected to arrive in the South East today with the Met Office giving warning that the country is facing the coldest winter in living memory. Blizzards were forecast to move southwards through the West of the country last night with snow expected in London and Manchester later today. The Met Office warned of the dangers of freezing and burst pipes overnight as it issued its second spate of severe weather warnings in as many days. The Highways Agency has had scores of gritting lorries on standby since last night.

The Met Office conducted an unprecedented emergency briefing to its industry clients yesterday on the prospects for this winter. Wayne Elliott, a Met Office forecaster and spokesman, said that the briefing to industry, which was closed to the press, was just a precaution. "In the first event of its kind, the Met Office today met leaders from business and central Government to brief them on the prospects for the coming winter," he said. "Society has changed since the last time we had a cold winter of any magnitude, so this is an effort to get the business energy customers and the Government prepared."

Western parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland were hit by the heavy snow and blizzards yesterday and forecasters confirmed their prediction that this winter is likely to be colder than average. The last time that happened was in the winter of 1995-96, but a spokesman said yesterday that this year could be even colder. The heavy wintry showers were then due to spread into West Wales and North and southwest England by this morning. The blizzards are then expected to move East during the day and into the weekend, according to the Met Office. Mr Elliot said southern parts would be most affected by the departure from normal temperatures, because they are not used to it.....

And the ball is now firmly in America's court to do the same. Despite being the world's most efficient sugar producer, lots of Australian sugar mills have closed in recent years due to protectionism in their major markets

"Britain has brokered an agreement to reform the last remaining fully protected area of European agriculture, cutting sugar prices, phasing out quotas and bringing an end to sugar mountains. The first reforms since the postwar period to the EU's much criticised sugar regime will cut prices by 36 per cent, destroy 100,000 jobs in Europe, end sugar farming in countries such as Ireland and Greece, and lead to economic devastation for Europe's former colonies in Africa and the Caribbean, which also benefited from the rigged market.... As well as European consumers and taxpayers, the reforms will also benefit efficient sugar producers such as Brazil, Thailand and Australia, who had taken successful legal action against Europe to force it to end its protectionism. It will also help some of the poorest African countries, who will get far better access to the EU market from 2009.

Under the reforms, prices will be cut by 36 per cent over the next four years, but the world's producers will not get free access until 2020. European sugar farmers and processors are being given billion euros (4.8 billion pounds) in compensation to help them to adjust to the new industries. Former colonies that lose out will be given 40 million euros next year.

Under the reforms, Ireland will be forced by quota cuts to shut down all its sugar beet production, while Italy will give up half its production quotas. Official estimates predict that European sugar production will drop by one quarter, and that 90,000 of Europe's 325,000 sugar workers will lose their jobs. With Europe's pampered and inefficient farmers largely unable to compete in the global market, the Commission predicts that all sugar exports from Europe will stop, and the EU will turn into a major sugar importer.....

The Common Agricultural Policy kept sugar prices in Europe at more than three times the world level. It led to huge sugar surpluses, which were dumped on the developing world, often undermining local farmers. However, sugar cane farmers in former European colonies, mainly in Africa, had preferential access to the European market, enabling them to sell at well above world rates...."

Freedom fighters, minutemen, resistance, whatever you may think of them, they are simply murdering scumbags. When they can no longer take on the US Army and Iraqi Soldiers head on, these vermin target hospitals.

At least 30 people were killed and 27 wounded when a car bomb exploded outside a hospital in a town south of Baghdad, officials say. The bomb was detonated as two Iraqi police cars drew up near the general hospital in Mahmudiya, about 20km (12 miles) outside Baghdad.A US military convoy passing by was also hit by the blast. Several Iraqi policemen were killed in the blast. Women and children were also among the many civilian casualties, including at least one medic at the hospital's emergency centre."I was leaving the hospital with my one-and-a-half-year-old son in my arms when the explosion happened," Huda Ali told the AFP news agency. "I was knocked down by the force of the blast and when I came to, my son was no longer in my arms. I found him among the dead."

The democrats and leftists, demand exit strategies, shoot off clever one liners like "Bush lied, thousands died", shed tears over the treatment of terrorists and flushed korans, vote against the war and support it, ask for a withdrawal and vote against it and how else we can bend over and weasel our way into surrendering more.

The odd fool will tell us that we need to know our enemy, we need to see it from their perspective, that the above murderers are not evil, just demonised and irrationally hated by a war mongering American cowboy. He and others probably laughed when that cowboy went to the bastion of liberty, China, and pleaded with them to allow more religious freedoms for 'their' people, they laughed when he couldn't open a locked door and broadcasted it around the world with glee. The odd buffoon will tell us George Bush and America are no better than these extremists, the terrorist threat is just stirred up, and muslims are being targeted.

But time and time again the extremists have displayed their eagerness to murder as many as they can.

Not content with the 200+ killed in Bali, the scum were planning to kill their loved ones as well, whilst attending the memorial service.

Jemaah Islamiah mastermind Azahari bin Husin was planning a suicide bomb attack on the memorial service held in Kuta last month for the 202 people who died in the Bali nightclub bombings three years ago.

George Bush must be sitting there in the oval office, speechless, holy Moses lord, I've been telling them this for the last.. I can't even remember how long it has been!!Its starting to get through, though painfully slow.

King Abdullah of Jordan has called for a relentless war on Muslim extremists in the wake of the suicide bombings in Amman earlier this month. He said the attacks increased Jordan's determination to stick to its reform and democratisation process.

King Abdullah said Jordan's reforms were "irreversible" and the suicide attacks would not halt them. "At the same time, it reaffirms our need to adopt a comprehensive strategy to confront the Takfiri culture," he said. Takfiris believe contemporary Muslim society has reverted to a state of unbelief (kufr) and thus consider legitimate both rebellion against the state and acts of violence against Muslim citizens.

The king wants Mr Bakhit to "not only deal with the security dimension, but also the ideological, cultural and political spheres to confront those who chose the path of destruction and sabotage to reach their goals".

While we in the west, fall over ourselves to allow the radical cleric to preach hatred of us, in the name of freedom of speech. His next statement is even more encouraging.

He also called for a "relentless war on all the Takfiri schools, which embrace extremism, backwardness, isolation and darkness and are fed on the ignorance and naivety of simple people."

He said fatwas, or religious decrees, issued by Takfiri schools constituted a threat to Jordan's society and its interests.

While we are at it, can we get some fatwas issued against the above child murderers and their supporters, can we get some Islamic leaders to tell these virgin mongerers that they are hereby banished from Islam and will spend eternity caring for pigs, something to that effect.

Well it may be a few years late but the Arab world is starting to wake up, I wonder if any of this would ever have been possible if that unsophisticated cowboy has decided to navel-gaze, reflect, refer to the impotent UN, learn French, fire the odd cruise missile somewhere, make foreign policy decisions based on the latest opinion poll or what was written on the placard of the professional protestor.

What we need now is not exit strategies and throwing away all that has been won with blood and sacrifice, but a hardening of resolve, no quarter, no room to breathe, no voice, no rest for these wicked extremists; and support for America, the Iraqis, Afghans and now the Jordanians.

On account of Muslims of course. When are people going to stop pandering to these ignoramuses?

It was the surprise hit of the autumn season, selling out for its entire run and inspiring rave reviews. But now the producers of Tamburlaine the Great have come under fire for censoring Christopher Marlowe’s 1580s masterpiece to avoid upsetting Muslims. Audiences at the Barbican in London did not see the Koran being burnt, as Marlowe intended, because David Farr, who directed and adapted the classic play, feared that it would inflame passions in the light of the London bombings.

Simon Reade, artistic director of the Bristol Old Vic, said that if they had not altered the original it “would have unnecessarily raised the hackles of a significant proportion of one of the world’s great religions”. The burning of the Koran was “smoothed over”, he said, so that it became just the destruction of “a load of books” relating to any culture or religion. That made it more powerful, they claimed.

Members of the audience also reported that key references to Muhammad had been dropped, particularly in the passage where Tamburlaine says that he is “not worthy to be worshipped”. In the original Marlowe writes that Muhammad “remains in hell”.

The censorship aroused condemnation yesterday from senior figures in the theatre and scholars, as well as religious leaders. Terry Hands, who directed Tamburlaine for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1992, said: “I don’t believe you should interfere with any classic for reasons of religious or political correctness.” Charles Nicholl, the author of The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe, said it was wrong to tamper with Marlowe because he asked “uncomfortable and confrontational questions — particularly aimed at those that held dogmatic, religious views”. He added: “Why should Islam be protected from the questioning gaze of Marlowe? Marlowe stands for provocative questions. This is a bit of an insult to him.”

Marlowe rivalled Shakespeare as the most powerful dramatist of the Elizabethan period. He died aged 29 in a brawl over a tavern bill. Tamburlaine the Great was written not later than 1587. It tells the story of a shepherd-robber who defeats the king of Persia, the emperor of Turkey and, seeing himself as the “scourge of God”, burns the Koran....

Park Honan, Emeritus Professor at the School of English, University of Leeds, and author of Christopher Marlowe: Poet & Spy, said: “It is wrong to tamper with the play, wrong to shorten it and wrong to leave out the burning of the Koran because that is involved with the exposition of Tamburlaine’s character. He’s a false prophet. This is meant to horrify the audience.

The drive for "green energy" in the developed world is having the perverse effect of encouraging the destruction of tropical rainforests. From the orang-utan reserves of Borneo to the Brazilian Amazon, virgin forest is being razed to grow palm oil and soybeans to fuel cars and power stations in Europe and North America. And surging prices are likely to accelerate the destruction

The rush to make energy from vegetable oils is being driven in part by European Union laws requiring conventional fuels to be blended with biofuels, and by subsidies equivalent to 20 pence a litre. Last week, the British government announced a target for biofuels to make up 5 per cent of transport fuels by 2010. The aim is to help meet Kyoto protocol targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

Rising demand for green energy has led to a surge in the international price of palm oil, with potentially damaging consequences. "The expansion of palm oil production is one of the leading causes of rainforest destruction in south-east Asia. It is one of the most environmentally damaging commodities on the planet," says Simon Counsell, director of the UK-based Rainforest Foundation. "Once again it appears we are trying to solve our environmental problems by dumping them in developing countries, where they have devastating effects on local people."

The main alternative to palm oil is soybean oil. But soya is the largest single cause of rainforest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon. Supporters of biofuels argue that they can be "carbon neutral" because the CO2 released from burning them is taken up again by the next crop. Interest is greatest for diesel engines, which can run unmodified on vegetable oil, and in Germany bio-diesel production has doubled since 2003. There are also plans for burning palm oil in power stations.

Until recently, Europe's small market in biofuels was dominated by home-grown rapeseed (canola) oil. But surging demand from the food market has raised the price of rapeseed oil too. This has led fuel manufacturers to opt for palm and soya oil instead. Palm oil prices jumped 10 per cent in September alone, and are predicted to rise 20 per cent next year, while global demand for biofuels is now rising at 25 per cent a year.

Roger Higman, of Friends of the Earth UK, which backs biofuels, says: "We need to ensure that the crops used to make the fuel have been grown in a sustainable way or we will have rainforests cleared for palm oil plantations to make bio-diesel."

I supppose it is a bit dastardly of me to mark Thanksgiving Day in this way but I am going to remind my American readers that the devout Protestant Pilgrim Fathers who held the first Thanksgiving were also such devout communists that it took a couple of years of starvation before they gave communism up and rediscovered private property. One account of all that is here. Communism was a killer even in those days. So much for the idea that Christianity and conservatism are necessarily associated. I offer an historical look at the relationship between Christianity and politics here -- where I also look the authoritarian element in Christianity.

We have no Thanksgiving or other harvest festival in Australia but the original white Australians also had an ambiguous relationship to private property. Most of them were convicted thieves -- including two of my ancestors.

And the Puritans have descendants:

The secular Puritans of modern-day Massachusetts: "The Puritans of Massachusetts have been dead for 300 years, but their authoritarian ghosts haunt us to this day. Consider the plight of Whole Foods Market, an international chain of natural and organic food stores, which found itself accused of planning to engage in criminal activity in its 14 Massachusetts stores this week. What high crimes and misdemeanors was the upscale grocer plotting? It was going to open its doors for business on Thanksgiving. Shocking but true: It was going to sell fruit and vegetables and milk and desserts.... In short, Whole Foods was going to make its wares available to Massachusetts customers on Thanksgiving -- just as it does for customers in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and more than two dozen other states nationwide.... The attorney general of Massachusetts looked at it and saw a crime. In a stiff letter to Whole Foods last week, Attorney General Thomas Reilly noted that under Chapter 136 of the Massachusetts legal code, "the performance of work on legal holidays is prohibited, unless permitted by a statutory exemption." If Whole Foods opened its doors on Thanksgiving, the letter warned, it could face "criminal and equitable enforcement actions to enjoin violations of the Blue Laws." Ah, yes, the blue laws -- those rules and regulations imposed by New England's 17th-century Puritan theocrats to govern moral conduct and ensure proper observance of the Sabbath."

If you had any misconceptions that the Israelis and the Islamic radicals were fighting on the same plane (excuse the pun), think again.

An Israeli civilian hang glider was inadvertently swept by heavy gusts of wind into southern Lebanon on Wednesday afternoon and was rescued by IDF forces. Adam Wexler, 26, narrowly escaped attempts by Hizbullah gunmen to take him captive before the army safely returned him home.

Three Hizbullah gunmen riding in a vehicle spotted Wexler landing and opened fire as they advanced towards him. Soldiers returned fire, and Wexler reportedly sprinted over a minefield and headed towards the border fence gate, with Hizbullah gunmen following hot at his heels.

Since their initial reaction was to open fire on the poor fellow, one would have to assume Hizbullah was not inviting the fellow for supper. Maybe the gunmen thought it was batman flying in, however I don't recall batman ever expressing a dislike of muslims. So I don't think I would be exaggerating if I said they wanted to trade the fellow for some prisoners or behead him and release a grainy video later; so you can hardly fault the IDF for saving this fool from the virgin mongerers. But look who has to defend their actions.

The IDF Spokesman later denied media reports from Lebanon claiming that IDF forces had encroached on Lebanese territory. "Under no circumstances did soldiers cross the blue line [the international border between Lebanon and Israel]; they opened the gate to allow the Israeli through while engaging in gun battles with the Hizbullah," a source in the Northern Command said.

I wonder what would have been the reaction if a Hizbullah foot soldier or Lebanese civillian stumbled into Israeli territory and was promptly beheaded and sent back in pieces?You bet there will be an outcry, condemnation from all parts of the globe, burning and pillaging, demands for an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq and drive the Jews into the sea.

The kind of outrage that was displayed when a muslim suicide bomber killed mainly muslims in Jordan, little of which is displayed when men, women and children are being blown apart by suicide bombers every other day in Iraq.

Following on from this, the UN has decided to go shopping at the local sports shop and get some balls, for the record, not willingly. Unfortunately they weren't convinced to throw in a plastic spine as well; the US might be able to cajole them into that purchase when the Christmas specials are on.

Following intense US pressure, the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday issued an unprecedented condemnation of Monday's Hizbullah attacks on northern Israel.

This condemnation - slamming Hizbullah by name for "acts of hatred" - marked the first time the Security Council has ever reprimanded Hizbullah for cross-border attacks on Israel. The condemnation followed by two days a failed attempt to get a condemnation issued on Monday, the day of the attack, when Algeria came out against any mention of Hizbullah in the statement.

When asked what changed from Monday to Wednesday, one diplomatic official replied: "John Bolton," a reference to the US ambassador to the UN. Bolton lobbied vigorously for the passage of the statement.

The condemnation expressed "deep concern" over the attack, and called on Lebanon to exercise its sovereignty and authority in the south according to relevant Security Council resolutions.

Not that this condemnation would spur the radicals into a state of intense navel gazing and self reflection, but I suppose its a start.

I watched this utterly tragic character last night, whining and crying over the predicament he now finds himself in. Did I feel sorry for him? Absolutely - his life is an appalling mess. Was I particularly moved by his accusations, that ‘they’ had taken everything from him (including his wife). No, I’m afraid I wasn’t. He made his own bed: a life of almost perpetual drugs and crime, according to reports. And not once did I hear him acknowledge that fact, or the harm he had done while he was here. Was I moved by his family’s account of how evilly he’s been treated. Nope, not really. In brief, I really don’t see why they can’t shoulder the burden he so clearly represents. Why don’t they support him?

LABOR has criticised the Federal Government for leaving a Melbourne man stateless after deporting him from Australia, despite having lived here for 36 years.

Of course it has.

Robert Jovicic was deported to Serbia last year on character grounds because of his long criminal record involving burglaries to support his heroin habit.

But the 38-year-old, who arrived in Australia when he was two from France with his Serbian-born parents, is now stateless and destitute because Serbia has refused to recognise him as a citizen.

Not our fault, really. He wasn’t stateless when he was deported to the country he was born in. So why aren’t the usual suspects screaming ‘horrid, horrid’ at the Serbians, who subsequently pulled the rug after he arrived there over a year ago?

Labor's immigration spokesman Tony Burke has criticised Mr Jovicic's deportation, saying it was too harsh a punishment for the crimes he had committed.

Deportation is not actually a punishment, Tony. It’s society’s way of saying ‘you’ve well and truly worn out your welcome’. The man is not a citizen. He never has been. And I can entirely understand how someone in immigration might, after reviewing his vast criminal record, say: ‘Australia has given this non-citizen about a bazillion chances to mend his ways - time to say bye, bye, really.’

Agreed - so go piss and moan at the evil Serbians, who apparently refuse to recognise the citizenship of someone born there, and to Serbian parents, at least one of whom apparently lives there still.

Mr Burke said while in some cases it was appropriate to deport criminals, the fact Mr Jovicic had spent most of his life in Australia should have been considered.

Oh, I entirely agree with that one, too! How did this useless creature (and non-citizen) manage to stay here as long as he did!

He called on Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone to acknowledge there was a genuine problem of deporting people who had lived in Australia for most of their lives.

No problem, Tony. They did it fairly easily, from what I can tell.

Mr Burke said the Immigration Department should acknowledge that Australia owed some kind of obligation to Mr Jovicic given he had spent so much of his life here.

Oh we do, do we? What do we owe this man? Once again, a non-citizen who spent most of his life doing harm to our community. And we owe him? Well, here’s a clanger for you to consider, Tony: I think he owes us. . .

And a grovelling apology for the life of crime he undertook, while living in a country in which he was essentially a guest, would be an excellent start.

"Hundreds of security cards giving people access to restricted areas at Sydney Airport are lost or stolen each year, a parliamentary inquiry has heard. Qantas security boss Geoff Askew today said thousands of Aviation Security Identification Cards (ASIC) were issued every year to people who worked in restricted areas at Sydney airport, including the airstrip and baggage rooms. But Australia's largest airline could not account for 384 of the cards, handed out by the Department of Transport and Regional Services in the past two years, Mr Askew told the Public Accounts and Audit Committee in Sydney. Of the cards, which expire in 2006, 24 were indirectly stolen while the "vast majority" had simply been lost, the committee's inquiry was told.

The parliamentary committee re-opened its investigations into aviation security after issues were raised in the Schapelle Corby drugs case and a leaked report showed Customs concerns about crime at airports. Mr Askew told the committee Qantas was concerned by the large number of unaccounted for cards. "(But) we would be concerned if we lost a laptop or any other piece of equipment as well," he said.

Mr Askew said the airline filed a police report once it was aware a card was missing. It then disabled the card so it could not work in the control access system. But a spokesman for Sydney Airport later confirmed the card could still be used to get into areas that were manned. "If they were going through a gate they would not need to swipe the card but a security guard would be expected to check their photographic ID," the spokesman said.

Sydney Airport Corp's airport security manager, Ron Elliott, told the inquiry the Federal Government needed to establish a national centralised ASIC database. This would help to weed out loopholes and address the system's shortcomings, he said. "It would be a matter for the government to do ... through the attorney general," Mr Elliott said.

In October, two former Qantas contractors were able to use their ASIC cards to access an area of Sydney's international terminal where they were not authorised to work. The workers, who face court next month, were arrested and charged with breaching security regulations but they claimed it would never have happened if they had been given the correct security passes in the first place".

The name of the small Texan town of "White Settlement" was seen by its Mayor and councillors as problematic so they had a vote designed to change the name of the town to "West Settlement". The voters rejected the proposal by a big majority. But some of the inhabitants are so annoyed that the question was even put that they now want to sack the mayor and his cronies over it! Press excerpt:

"Eighteen people bent on overthrowing the government of White Settlement met Saturday night in a makeshift war room at Best Western Fort Worth Inn and Suites. Two weeks after voters resoundingly defeated a measure that would have changed the city's name, the group agreed to devote its time and effort to a new election -- one to recall the mayor and one City Council member of this small suburb west of Fort Worth.... Although some business experts supported the name change and the proposal attracted national attention, many residents were outraged at the suggestion that outsiders might consider the city's name racist. The city was named after the historical location of an Anglo settlement amid Indian settlements in the mid-1800s. Residents turned out in record numbers to overwhelmingly reject the proposed name of West Settlement."

My talks at university campuses sometimes occasion protests featuring Leftists and Islamists who call me names. A favorite of theirs is "racist." This year, for example, a "Stand up to Racism Rally" anticipated my talk at the Rochester Institute of Technology, I was accused of racism against Muslim immigrants at Dartmouth College, and pamphlets at the University of Toronto charged me with "anti-Muslim racism."

Anti-Muslim racism? That oxymoron puzzled me. Islam being a religion with followers of every race and pigmentation, where might race enter the picture? Dictionaries agree that racism concerns race, not religion...

Thus understood, the term racist cannot be ascribed to me, as I neither believe that race defines capabilities nor that certain races have greater capabilities than others. Also, my writings and talks never touch on issues of race.

Does that mean the word racist merely serves Leftists and Islamists as an all-purpose pejorative, a magical insult that discredits without regard to accuracy? No, the evolution of this word is more complex than that.... Note the evolution: As belief in racial differences and racial superiority wanes in polite society, some parties expand the meaning of racism to condemn political decisions such as worrying about too much immigration (even of poor whites), preferring one's own culture, fearing radical Islam, and implementing effective counterterrorist measures.

This attempt to delegitimize political differences must be rejected. Racism refers only to racial issues, not to views on immigration, culture, religion, ideology, law enforcement, or military strategy.

Boston Globe calumnist (how apt) James Carroll has a fear and loathing of Republican politicians. It's possible to read a few of his published calumns (again, apt) and come away with the belief that he would prefer to see the US Executive Branch as it currently stands, up against the wall for high treason. There are accusations and suppositions. Conspiracy theories. Declarations of incompetence. Clearly, James is not a fan of Dubya. He has a special level of contempt for Cheney and Rumsfeld, who he believes have been shadow puppet masters of Presidents past. However, interesting things happen when his side of politics gets called on the bullshit they continually espouse, for his literary conundrums become a sight to behold. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present James Carroll.

'When Rumsfeld became Gerald Ford's White House chief of staff, he again tapped Cheney as his deputy. Now they set out to destroy detente, the fragile new relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. Dismissing detente as moral relativism, Cheney so believed in Cold War bipolarity that when it began to melt in the late 1980s, he tried to refreeze it. As George H.W. Bush's secretary of defense, Cheney was key to America's refusal to accommodate the hopeful new spirit of the age. Violence was in retreat, with peace breaking out across the globe, from the Philippines to South Africa, Ireland, the Middle East, and Central America. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Cheney forged America's response -- which was, little over a month later, to wage an illegal war against Panama.'

How does James know all this about the current US VP? Interviews? Guesses? In the late 80's, peace was apperently breaking out all over, and a new wave of religious terrorists was being formed.

'The clearest instance of this phenomenon today is unfolding in Iraq. ''Wars generate their own momentum," Robert McNamara once wrote, ''and follow the law of unintended consequences." George W. Bush must be held accountable for the consequences of his fateful decisions, from the 2,000 dead Americans to the American embrace of torture to the igniting of a clash of civilizations. But the ease with which the United States embarked on Bush's unnecessary and illegal war -- with huge popular, political, and pundit support -- was evidence of an already established momentum that predated Bush, and even his father.'

Must be held accountable. What's good for the flu-ridden goose, must be good for the plastic turkey.

'That is why the recent cluster of tragedies, from nearby and far off, must be the occasion of more than regret and worry. Neither should ''disaster fatigue" be allowed to dull the sense of urgency with which news of catastrophic suffering is normally received.

Absolute primacy belongs to the alleviation of such suffering, and when disaster strikes, nothing matters more than the rush to help. But help must be constructive and consistent. When it is not, every mistaken choice must be the occasion of criticism, learning, and reform. If dams (or levees) have been neglected ahead of time, and subsequently fail, those responsible must be challenged -- for the sake of safer dams. If relief efforts after the fact are slow or inept, those responsible must be called to account. Deeper sources of carelessness or corruption are often exposed during disasters, and they must be confronted.'

There's that 'call to account' thing again. How James expects to prevent the catastrophic events of earthquakes and hurricanes is not made clear, but it most certainly is somehow the fault of that evil bastard Cheney or devil incarnate Rumsfeld.

'So also that season's grief. Like frightened and heart-sick scribes looking to Marines to protect them on the battlefield, and therefore unable to write critically about their protectors, the news media, with rare exceptions, simply embraced and passed along Bush's purposes and justifications, not matter how palpably dishonest. Judith Miller was the public captain of this enterprise, but Woodward was her secret co-captain. This time, he was his own Deep Throat.

Your naiveté consisted in the belief that, after Vietnam, your nation would never again embark on a criminal and unnecessary war. After a popular movement, inspired by tribunes of the free press, stopped the Vietnam War, you believed that the government would be responsive to the will of the people, forgetting that the people can surrender that will.

The finger-pointing in Washington now -- who voted for what, when and why -- is truly pointless. The merest glance back at the prewar debates shows that the justifications for war were all made of tissue. If the press treated them as substantial, that is because the nation itself, which still includes you, needed the tissue to cover its shame. The tissue of lies is yours.'

The lead line of the last paragraph is worth the price of admission to this crazy show, ladies and gentlemen. When the chips were down, the table turned, and the money was finally on the barrelhead, James' side of politics folded like a cheap suit. His response? No point in finger-pointing now. He then blames the public for not heeding the press call for Republican blood. The hypocrisy of James Carroll is shameless. He truly believes that his occupation, as a denizen of the fourth estate, gives him some special power over the wider public. James Carroll sees himself as the very thing he accused Bob Woodward of being. An inside player, able to shape events and wider opinion. The lies, the deceits and the untruths are his alone. The best thing the Boston Globe could be used for is to wrap your kitchen scraps in and throw it out with the other garbage.

The Iranian parliament has approved the outline of a bill that would bar UN inspectors from its nuclear sites if the UN refers Iran to the Security Council for sanctions. In a vote, 183 of 197 Iranian MPs backed the proposals, four days before the International Atomic Energy Agency is due to decide whether to refer Iran to the Security Council over its secretive nuclear program.

The atomic agency passed a resolution in September and called on Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment-related activities before the IAEA meets on Thursday. The legislation must now be approved by Iran's ruling Guardian Council. Analysts expected this to happen today.

The Iranians have seen what happened next door in Iraq, Saddam invaded Kuwait, was driven back and left to his own devices, he played games with the UN inspectors, thumbed his nose at the international community, threatened death and mayhem, supported terrorists, butchered hundreds of thousands, profited from the oil for food program, and what happened.

Was it 10 or 12 years, that it took the international community to decide that it still could not decide, an angry Texan decided enough is enough, the US threatened war, millions around the world protested against the war but insisted they did not support Saddam with a straight face. The Iranians need only tune into CNN or any news outlet to see the infighting still continuing in the United States and around the world, voting for the war but not supporting it (and vice versa), the regret expressed by so many because millions are free in Iraq, support for the war depending on the next suicide bombing, squealing from all sides over exit strategies, the fair treatment of terrorist vermin, and the fussing over the fair trial of a butcher.

Its pretty obvious to the Iranians, by the time someone decides to make a decision on them, the current group of leaders will be long dead and the nukes will be undergoing routine maintenance.

BRITAIN'S first black Archbishop has made a powerful attack on multiculturalism, urging English people to reclaim their national identity.

The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, said that too many people were embarrassed about being English. "Multiculturalism has seemed to imply, wrongly for me, let other cultures be allowed to express themselves but do not let the majority culture at all tell us its glories, its struggles, its joys, its pains," he said.

The failure of England to rediscover its culture afresh would lead only to greater political extremism, he said.

Dr Sentamu, a former judge in Uganda, called for the English to rediscover their cultural identity by properly marking celebrations such as St George's Day on April 23. "I speak as a foreigner, really. The English are somehow embarrassed about some of the good things they have done," he said. "They have done some terrible things but not all the empire was a bad idea.

"Because the empire has gone there is almost the sense in which there is not a big idea that drives this nation."

The archbishop, who fled Idi Amin's regime in 1974, said he would not be where he was today were it not for the British Empire and the English teachers and missionaries who worked in Africa.

"The Australian Customs Service pushed the button on a $250million computer project that caused chaos on the wharves, even though it knew the system did not have the power to run the new software. An internal Customs report seen by The Australian warned that the agency's mainframe computer had only half the processing power needed to run the Integrated Cargo System, which was budgeted at $35 million. Other internal documents show that Customs was struggling to fine-tune the software in the weeks leading up to the system's October 12 launch, with the system losing messages and running slow.

The launch of the ICS - a computer package that processes Customs declarations for imports - sparked a month of chaos on the wharves across the eastern seaboard, with importers struggling to clear goods through the system. Customs was forced to put on additional staff to speed up the processing of imports for an as yet unrevealed cost. Cargo began to pile up on wharves in NSW and Victoria, with retailers running short of goods in the lead-up to Christmas.

While Customs has blamed importers for not submitting the correct details to process cargo, internal documents show the agency was aware of serious problems well before it switched on the system. "The projected capacity requirements to September/October 2006 suggest that there is a major capacity problem imminent," an August Mainframe Capacity Review report reads. "Further mainframe performance savings ... must be found and implemented ASAP." ....

The problems on the wharves continue to reverberate through the business community, with customs brokers and freight forwarders estimating the crisis has cost their industry $78million. Some importers have already retained lawyers, with several firms understood to be exploring the possibility of a class action".

Bill Gates seems to want a piece of the action when it comes to renewable energy. The billionaire's investment company, Cascade Investment, has agreed to invest $84 million in Pacific Ethanol which will help it finance construction of several planned fuel-additive plants on the West Coast. Cascade's investment gives Gates a 27% stake in Pacific Ethanol. Gates will be sharing the company with petroleum distributor SC Fuels, which owns the majority stake in the ethanol producer and is one of its biggest customers. It could be a lucrative investment, since federal law requires that the U.S. nearly doubles the amount of ethanol it uses annually to 7.5 billion in 2012 from 4 billion gallons in 2006.

A year after his [van Gogh's] murder, The Netherlands is a country transformed. Previously, only the Queen and Prime Minister had police protection, and ministers cycled to their ministries. Now, many politicians, writers and artists are considered to be in such danger that they have permanent armed guards and are driven around in bomb-proof armoured cars. The Interior Ministry has set up a special unit assessing death threats from Islamic extremists and providing protection squads. "In a democracy, strong opinion-leaders must be able to say what they want to say. Therefore, the Government will take the responsibility to protect them," a spokesman from the ministry said, refusing to divulge the number of people receiving protection.

In the parliament in The Hague, inside the airport-style security, two besuited bodyguards stand erect outside the office of Geert Wilders, Ali's political rival, checking closely anyone who has permission to enter. "I have been deluged with death threats," said the maverick right-wing MP, who has called for the deportation of Islamic extremists. Across town, police are investigating the shot fired at the window of Rita Verdonk, the Immigration Minister, who has become a hate figure among Muslim communities for introducing some of the strictest immigration laws in Europe, and insisting that Muslims should integrate.

Amsterdam councillor Ahmed Aboutaleb, a Dutch-Moroccan who has said that Moroccans who do not like The Netherlands should leave, is also under permanent protection. "He never gives interviews on that issue," a spokeswoman said. Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen has tried to build bridges with the Muslim community but, as the country's highest-profile Jew, he also needs 24-hour protection.

At Leiden University law school, professor Afshin Ellian, an Iranian refugee who has called for reform of Islam and even suggested that comedians should make jokes about it, is hustled through the electronically locked doors to his office by two bodyguards. "In The Netherlands, terrorists want to threaten not only the public ... they also want to kill public figures, such as artists, academics and politicians," he said. "It is not special in terms of Islam -- in Iran, it is normal to kill people who criticise Islam, as in Egypt and Iraq. It is legitimised by Islamic political theology, which says it is all right to kill someone if they are an enemy of Allah. But this is happening in Europe."

Academics and authorities in The Netherlands are trying to understand why, in their country, Islamic extremism has gone down the path of assassination, while in Britain and Spain it has produced bombings. The rise in the death threats started in 2002 when Pim Fortuyn, a flamboyant, gay, right-wing maverick, called for a halt to Islamic immigration. He complained that police did not take the death threats against him seriously. He was killed not by a Muslim, but by a left-wing activist who said he did it "for the Muslims". It was the first political killing in The Netherlands for three centuries and was seen as a one-off. But the murder of van Gogh two years later convinced people that the threat of political killing had become permanent.

A study by Frank Bovenkerk of the University of Utrecht confirmed the rise in death threats across the country, and their seriousness. "They are under real threat -- they would be killed without protection," he said. "We have a type of provocateur which is unprecedented in The Netherlands. They claim it is about freedom of speech, but it is about freedom of cursing." Even if the would-be assassins are foiled by the intelligence services and the protection squads, the death threats are already having some success in silencing criticism. "People are very afraid of saying things now," Professor Ellian said. "There is self-censorship."

A senior (conservative) Australian Federal politician who draws attention to the state of the emperor's clothes! Oh for more like her

"In a wide-ranging speech to Adelaide Rotarians, Senator Vanstone dismissed many commonwealth security measures as essentially ineffective. "To be tactful about these things, a lot of what we do is to make people feel better as opposed to actually achieve an outcome," Senator Vanstone said. Unaware that a journalist from Adelaide's Sunday Mail newspaper was in the lunchtime audience last Wednesday, Senator Vanstone complained about being forced to use plastic knives on aircraft and revealed a bizarre discussion with John Howard about the potential to hijack a plane using a pencil...

During her Adelaide speech, Senator Vanstone implied the use of plastic cutlery on planes to thwart terrorism was foolhardy. "Has it ever occurred to you that you just smash your wine glass and jump at someone, grab the top of their head and put it in their carotid artery and ask anything?" Senator Vanstone told her audience of about 100 Rotarians. "And believe me, you will have their attention. I think of this every time I see more money for the security agencies."

The Immigration Minister also told of a grisly conversation with Mr Howard during a discussion on increased spending on national security. Senator Vanstone said: "I asked him if I was able to get on a plane with an HB pencil, which you are able to, and I further asked him if I went down and came and grabbed him by the front of the head and stabbed the HB pencil into your eyeball and wiggled it around down to your brain area, do you think you'd be focusing? He's thinking, she's gone mad again." ....

Qantas has backed Senator Vanstone on the reintroduction of metal cutlery on planes. "We have been advised that the Government is reviewing this particular measure and we support that," Qantas's head of security Geoff Askew said".

Tony Blair is rapidly moving from Greenie to realist while denying, of course, that he is doing any such thing

Britain will start building new civil nuclear power stations under plans backed by Tony Blair, The Times has learnt. Less than two years after a government paper called nuclear power an unattractive option, the Prime Minister has become convinced that building nuclear power stations is the only way to secure energy needs and meet obligations to reduce carbon emissions. In a controversial move, he wants planning procedures to be quickened so that the first stations could be under construction within ten years, far earlier than expected, advisers have told The Times.

After first promising a decision on new stations by the end of this Parliament, then by the end of next year, Mr Blair will face down critics and set up a government review within the next two weeks, asking it to reach conclusions by the early summer.

The stations would be built on existing sites in the hope of reducing public opposition and swifter planning and building procedures. They would involve the latest technology expected to be adopted soon in France and the US. Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary and the Cabinet's leading opponent of nuclear power, hinted yesterday that even she would back the move. In an interview with the BBC's Politics Show, she said that, although there were many problems with nuclear power, "I've always accepted we can't afford to close the door on nuclear."

But Mr Blair, who has been given private preliminary studies, believes that all the arguments point to nuclear power and has effectively made up his mind, according to authoritative sources. His decision is a remarkable U-turn.

The review, though headed by a senior figure from the Trade and Industry Department, will report to the Prime Minister and Alan Johnson, the Industry Secretary, and contain members from other departments and, crucially, from the Downing Street strategy unit. Critics will suspect that membership will be chosen to ensure a different conclusion to the last energy White Paper in 2003.

Britain's 12 nuclear power stations provide 22 per cent of the electricity. Unless they are replaced there will only be three stations left by 2020. Studies prepared for Mr Blair by Sir David King, his chief scientific adviser, and other advisers have convinced him that renewable forms of energy, such as wind and wave power, cannot fill the gap. As coal-fired and nuclear stations close they will have to be replaced by gas-fired electricity stations and Britain will soon become a net gas importer.

Mr Blair's advisers maintain that the debate should not be seen as a competition between nuclear power and "renewables", which the Government is committed to boosting.

The nuclear option is unlikely to be opposed by the Conservatives. David Willetts, the Shadow Industry Secretary, said at the party conference: "We must make the case for civil nuclear power to tackle the energy crisis with least damage to the environment.

Behind our "Western" heart

As the name of this blog implies, we have always welcomed contributors and readers from anywhere in the Western world. But there is also something else behind the name. The blog originated in Australia and most contributions come from Australia. And that is very fitting. Australians have an unusually good awareness of events outside their own country. Australian newspapers feature news from Britain and the USA not as an afterthought but as a major part of their coverage. So Australians do tend to have a truly Western heart -- and you will see that in the posts appearing here. Events in Australia, Britain and the USA all feature frequently here, plus occasional coverage of other places, particularly Israel.

A primer in American politics for non-Americans:

SCOTUS is the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest court in the land

The "GOP" stands for "Grand Old Party" and refers to the Republican party. The GOP is at present center/Right, while the Democrats have been undergoing a steady drift Leftwards and now have policies similar to mainstream European Leftist parties.

The ideological identity of both parties has however been very fluid -- almost reversing itself over time. In the mid 19th century, the GOP was the party of big government and concern for minorities while the Democrats advertised themselves as "The party of the white man" -- an orientation that lasted into the mid 20th century in the South. The Democrats are still obsessed with race but have now flipped into support for discrimination AGAINST whites.

Was Pope Urban VIII the first Warmist? Below we see him refusing to look through Galileo's telescope. People tend to refuse to consider evidence— if what they might discover contradicts what they believe.

Some brief observations about Leftism

As a good academic, I first define my terms: A Leftist is a person who is so dissatisfied with the way things naturally are that he/she is prepared to use force to make people behave in ways that they otherwise would not.

Leftists think that utopia can be coerced into existence -- so no dishonesty or brutality is beyond them in pursuit of that "noble" goal

Leftism is fundamentally authoritarian. Whether by revolution or by legislation, Leftists aim to change what people can and must do. When in 2008 Obama said that he wanted to "fundamentally transform" America, he was not talking about America's geography or topography but rather about American people. He wanted them to stop doing things that they wanted to do and make them do things that they did not want to do. Can you get a better definition of authoritarianism than that?

And note that an American President is elected to administer the law, not make it. That seems to have escaped Mr Obama

That Leftism is intrinsically authoritarian is not a new insight. It was well understood by none other than Friedrich Engels (Yes. THAT Engels). His excellent short essay On authority was written as a reproof to the dreamy Anarchist Left of his day. It concludes: "A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means"

Evan Sayet: The Left sides "...invariably with evil over good, wrong over right, and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success." (t=5:35+ on video)

Some useful definitions:

If a conservative doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one. If a liberal doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed. If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat. If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone. If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him. If a conservative doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels. Liberals demand that those they don't like be shut down. If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church. A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced. (Unless it's a foreign religion, of course!) If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it. A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

Death taxes: You would expect a conscientious person, of whatever degree of intelligence, to reflect on the strange contradiction involved in denying people the right to unearned wealth, while supporting programs that give people unearned wealth.

America is no longer the land of the free. It is now the land of the regulated -- though it is not alone in that, of course

Envy is a strong and widespread human emotion so there has alway been widespread support for policies of economic "levelling". Both the USA and the modern-day State of Israel were founded by communists but reality taught both societies that respect for the individual gave much better outcomes than levelling ideas. Sadly, there are many people in both societies in whom hatred for others is so strong that they are incapable of respect for the individual. The destructiveness of what they support causes them to call themselves many names in different times and places but they are the backbone of the political Left

The large number of rich Leftists suggests that, for them, envy is secondary. They are directly driven by hatred and scorn for many of the other people that they see about them. Hatred of others can be rooted in many things, not only in envy. But the haters come together as the Left.

Leftists hate the world around them and want to change it: the people in it most particularly. Conservatives just want to be left alone to make their own decisions and follow their own values.

The failure of the Soviet experiment has definitely made the American Left more vicious and hate-filled than they were. The plain failure of what passed for ideas among them has enraged rather than humbled them.

Ronald Reagan famously observed that the status quo is Latin for “the mess we’re in.” So much for the vacant Leftist claim that conservatives are simply defenders of the status quo. They think that conservatives are as lacking in principles as they are.

The shallow thinkers of the Left sometimes claim that conservatives want to impose their own will on others in the matter of abortion. To make that claim is however to confuse religion with politics. Conservatives are in fact divided about their response to abortion. The REAL opposition to abortion is religious rather than political. And the church which has historically tended to support the LEFT -- the Roman Catholic church -- is the most fervent in the anti-abortion cause. Conservatives are indeed the one side of politics to have moral qualms on the issue but they tend to seek a middle road in dealing with it. Taking the issue to the point of legal prohibitions is a religious doctrine rather than a conservative one -- and the religion concerned may or may not be characteristically conservative. More on that here

The Leftist hunger for change to the society that they hate leads to a hunger for control over other people. And they will do and say anything to get that control: "Power at any price". Leftist politicians are mostly self-aggrandizing crooks who gain power by deceiving the uninformed with snake-oil promises -- power which they invariably use to destroy. Destruction is all that they are good at. Destruction is what haters do.

Leftists are consistent only in their hate. They don't have principles. How can they when "there is no such thing as right and wrong"? All they have is postures, pretend-principles that can be changed as easily as one changes one's shirt

A Leftist assumption: Making money doesn't entitle you to it, but wanting money does.

"Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money -- only for wanting to keep your own money." --columnist Joe Sobran (1946-2010)

I often wonder why Leftists refer to conservatives as "wingnuts". A wingnut is a very useful device that adds versatility wherever it is used. Clearly, Leftists are not even good at abuse. Once they have accused their opponents of racism and Nazism, their cupboard is bare. Similarly, Leftists seem to think it is a devastating critique to refer to "Worldnet Daily" as "Worldnut Daily". The poverty of their argumentation is truly pitiful

The Leftist assertion that there is no such thing as right and wrong has a distinguished history. It was Pontius Pilate who said "What is truth?" (John 18:38). From a Christian viewpoint, the assertion is undoubtedly the Devil's gospel

"If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action." - Ludwig von Mises

Because of their need to be different from the mainstream, Leftists are very good at pretending that sow's ears are silk purses

Among people who should know better, Leftism is a character defect. Leftists HATE success in others -- which is why notably successful societies such as the USA and Israel are hated and failures such as the Palestinians can do no wrong.

A Leftist's beliefs are all designed to pander to his ego. So when you have an argument with a Leftist, you are not really discussing the facts. You are threatening his self esteem. Which is why the normal Leftist response to challenge is mere abuse.

Because of the fragility of a Leftist's ego, anything that threatens it is intolerable and provokes rage. So most Leftist blogs can be summarized in one sentence: "How DARE anybody question what I believe!". Rage and abuse substitute for an appeal to facts and reason.

Their threatened egos sometimes drive Leftists into quite desperate flights from reality. For instance, they often call Israel an "Apartheid state" -- when it is in fact the Arab states that practice Apartheid -- witness the severe restrictions on Christians in Saudi Arabia. There are no such restrictions in Israel.

Because their beliefs serve their ego rather than reality, Leftists just KNOW what is good for us. Conservatives need evidence.

“Absolute certainty is the privilege of uneducated men and fanatics.” -- C.J. Keyser

"Almost all professors of the arts and sciences are egregiously conceited, and derive their happiness from their conceit" -- Erasmus

THE FALSIFICATION OF HISTORY HAS DONE MORE TO IMPEDE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT THAN ANY ONE THING KNOWN TO MANKIND -- ROUSSEAU

"Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him" (Proverbs 26: 12). I think that sums up Leftists pretty well.

Eminent British astrophysicist Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington is often quoted as saying: "Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." It was probably in fact said by his contemporary, J.B.S. Haldane. But regardless of authorship, it could well be a conservative credo not only about the cosmos but also about human beings and human society. Mankind is too complex to be summed up by simple rules and even complex rules are only approximations with many exceptions.

Politics is the only thing Leftists know about. They know nothing of economics, history or business. Their only expertise is in promoting feelings of grievance

Socialism makes the individual the slave of the state – capitalism frees them.

MESSAGE to Leftists: Even if you killed all conservatives tomorrow, you would just end up in another Soviet Union. Conservatives are all that stand between you and that dismal fate.

Many readers here will have noticed that what I say about Leftists sometimes sounds reminiscent of what Leftists say about conservatives. There is an excellent reason for that. Leftists are great "projectors" (people who see their own faults in others). So a good first step in finding out what is true of Leftists is to look at what they say about conservatives! They even accuse conservatives of projection (of course).

The research shows clearly that one's Left/Right stance is strongly genetically inherited but nobody knows just what specifically is inherited. What is inherited that makes people Leftist or Rightist? There is any amount of evidence that personality traits are strongly genetically inherited so my proposal is that hard-core Leftists are people who tend to let their emotions (including hatred and envy) run away with them and who are much more in need of seeing themselves as better than others -- two attributes that are probably related to one another. Such Leftists may be an evolutionary leftover from a more primitive past.

Leftists seem to believe that if someone like Al Gore says it, it must be right. They obviously have a strong need for an authority figure. The fact that the two most authoritarian regimes of the 20th century (Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia) were socialist is thus no surprise. Leftists often accuse conservatives of being "authoritarian" but that is just part of their usual "projective" strategy -- seeing in others what is really true of themselves.

"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here. For roughly two centuries now, antisemitism has, throughout the Western world, been principally associated with Leftism (including the socialist Hitler) -- as it is to this day. See here.

Leftists call their hatred of Israel "Anti-Zionism" but Zionists are only a small minority in Israel

Some of the Leftist hatred of Israel is motivated by old-fashioned antisemitism (beliefs in Jewish "control" etc.) but most of it is just the regular Leftist hatred of success in others. And because the societies they inhabit do not give them the vast amount of recognition that their large but weak egos need, some of the most virulent haters of Israel and America live in those countries. So the hatred is the product of pathologically high self-esteem.

"With their infernal racial set-asides, racial quotas, and race norming, liberals share many of the Klan's premises. The Klan sees the world in terms of race and ethnicity. So do liberals! Indeed, liberals and white supremacists are the only people left in America who are neurotically obsessed with race. Conservatives champion a color-blind society" -- Ann Coulter

Who said this in 1968? "I am not, and never have been, a man of the right. My position was on the Left and is now in the centre of politics". It was Sir Oswald Mosley, founder and leader of the British Union of Fascists

The term "Fascism" is mostly used by the Left as a brainless term of abuse. But when they do make a serious attempt to define it, they produce very complex and elaborate definitions -- e.g. here and here. In fact, Fascism is simply extreme socialism plus nationalism. But great gyrations are needed to avoid mentioning the first part of that recipe, of course.

Politicians are in general only a little above average in intelligence so the idea that they can make better decisions for us that we can make ourselves is laughable

A quote from the late Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931–2005: "You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is an example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

Heritage is what survives death: Very rare and hence very valuable

Two lines below of a famous hymn that would be incomprehensible to Leftists today ("honor"? "right"? "freedom?" Freedom to agree with them is the only freedom they believe in)

First to fight for right and freedom,
And to keep our honor clean

It is of course the hymn of the USMC -- still today the relentless warriors that they always were.

If any of the short observations above about Leftism seem wrong, note that they do not stand alone. The evidence for them is set out at great length in a MONOGRAPH on Leftism.

You can email me (John Ray) here (Hotmail address). In emailing me, you can address me as "John", "Jon", "Dr. Ray" or "JR" and that will be fine -- but my preference is for "JR"

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)